The design and scientific significance of the Sanahin Monastery's architectural construction is beyond national. The unity and compactness of the whole monastery complex were achieved due to the fact that for a period of three centuries all the architects thoroughly examined everything built by their predecessors and built on their past experience.

The Sanahin Monastery is situated on a small plateau at Debed river canyon, 1000 meters above sea level. The exact time of its establishment is not known; however, historians' evidences prove its existence long before the X century, while in the X-XI cc the number of monks had already reached several hundreds. Like in Haghpat, medieval calligraphers studied theology and humanities here, translated Euclid's and Plato's works bringing together antique and oriental traditions typical to the Silver Era.